Angelina Jolie’s film on Bosnia honored with special award

LOS ANGELES - Reuters

Director of the movie Angelina Jolie poses at the premiere of "In the Land of Blood and Honey" at the Arclight theatre in Los Angeles, California, December 8, 2011. REUTERS Photo

Hollywood movie producers are honoring Angelina Jolie’s Bosnia war film “In the Land of Blood and Honey” with a special award for its portrayal of social issues.

The Producers Guild of America said on Dec. 13 that the movie, Jolie’s directing debut which she also wrote and co-produced, would be given the 2102 Stanley Kramer Award.

Established in 2002 in memory of the Hollywood director, the award is given annually to a movie producer whose work “illuminates provocative social issues in an accessible and elevating fashion.”

“’In the Land of Blood and Honey’ is an extraordinary film that portrays a complex love story set against the terrors of the Bosnian War, especially towards women,” Producers Guild presidents Hawk Koch and Mark Gordon said in a statement.

A love story

The movie tells a tale of love between a Serb man and a Muslim woman before the 1992-1995 Bosnian war who later meet in different circumstances when he is an army officer and she is his detainee.
Objections from female victims of the Bosnian war last year forced Jolie to shoot much of the film in Hungary, rather than Bosnia, as the actress had first planned. But a private screening in Bosnia last week was greeted with enthusiasm from some of the movie’s previous toughest critics.

Jolie and her co-producers said in a statement they were honored by the PGA award, whose past recipients include “Hotel Rwanda”, and Al Gore’s global warming documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”